NEWS: Chaucer: To be bigger than Eminem?

CULTURE: Chaucer: To be bigger than Eminem?

Rap has often been used (poorly) by educators and schools to convince the "youth of today" to not drink, not do drugs, and stay off those pesky railway lines. Now, a rap artist has been recruited to Cambridge University to make the works of Chaucer "more accessible" to schoolchildren.

This follows efforts in the UK to make Shakespeare "more accessible" to children by producing short, 30 minute performances and introducing children as young as four to some of the characters.

For good measure, here's Baba's version of The Pardoner's Tale. Google for the original, lines 419-425. Doesn't seem too bad...

Retarded.

i have mixed feelings about this...

on one hand, i'm glad kids will find "the classics" more accessible...but on the other, altering their form automatically makes it "not the actual classic" so i don't know...

/frustrated english BA

The Pardoner's Tale, lines 419-425

Well, Baba's gives the gist of it, anyway.

Edit: forgot to include line 425.

[Edited on Jul 28, 2005 by Sick]

I think this is a good idea; nothing wrong with translating a classic to make the story more appealing to a modern audiance. To often, I think, classics become set in stone and there by lose the effect and power to move which make them classics in the first place.

Oh dear god. WHY CAN'T KIDS JUST REEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAD?!

Not that I've ever read Chaucer... but still.

Yeah, actually there is something wrong with translating a classic to make the story more appealing to modern audiences. The power and beauty of so many old, brilliant literary works lies in the way they used the language.

Not so good: 'Dude, have you got something to say or something? Like, what the fuck?'
Better: 'The bow is bent and drawn - make from the shaft!'

Hell, I think it's a great idea. Anything to get kids reading. And I like the idea of lyric poetry.

This kind of thing does interest me, but I'm sure it's pitched over the head of the kids. I find these things entertaining, but only if you know what they are talking about. It's a little like the reduced shakespear company, who knock out a great version of Romeo and Juliet in 3 minutes. They're really cool to see, but only if you know the play first.

This is gonna translate into a bunch of students who think they know Chaucer but actually don't, just like they think they know Romeo & Juliet from the Baz Luhrman version. I thought it was great, but still....that doesn't make me an expert on Shakespeare, and I probably wouldn't have even liked it if I didn't know the original source.
Maybe if they taught this stuff side by side?

Curi.

I would listen to some Hair Band Chaucer. That shit would be super tight Yo! Maybe even some Danzig Chaucer. Ahhh Ya.

[Edited on Jul 28, 2005 11:17AM]

I really enjoyed doing Chaucer at A level...Not sure i'd enjoy the 'updated' version of his stuff!! It completely removes the history from his work and you get no knowledge of the social situation of the time, which is just as important as appreciating the actual stories.

[Edited on Jul 28, 2005 7:19PM]

Maybe you should read Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales are pretty good.

We all know how great Canadian rappers are.

I remember in school probably around 8th grade when we were listening to Romeo & Juliet in class, the recordings. We had two versions, the classical theatrical reading, and a "contemporary" reading in today's modern and cosmopolitain language. After a vote we listened to the contemporary one, and it sucked all kinds of ass.

The way to make classical literature accessible to children is to actually take the time to teach history, grammar, and poetry. We shouldn't have to dumb anything down, it is up to the teachers and especially the parents to teach the children.

A lot of Chaucer is far more violent and sexual than a lot of rap.

And there's fart jokes. I really don't have a problem with this.

One of the things I remember reading in fifth grade was comic book versions of Shakespeare plays. They were probably really terrible, but they got me interested in Macbeth and Hamlet. Similarly, simplified versions of the Bible were helpful. Although I must admit, I can't see a rap version of Chaucer being helpful, nor do I see reading The Canterbury Tales as being particularly necessary, but I don't really give a fuck what Chaucer would've thought of it. He probably wouldn't have liked Hyperion either. He can fucking deal.

Well most of the kids these days like to listen to that crap called rap, and i guess seeing as everyone knows this they figured they need to find some way to get the kids who choose not to read to learn alittle history even if its not perfectly accurate in words.

[Edited on Jul 28, 2005 4:57PM]

In Rhode Island there is a theatre company doing an educational program called "From The Bard to the Bounce: A Hip-Hop and Shakespeare Experience" and apparently it's pretty fabulous. Although that particular program uses Shakespeares words I think that rephrasing the classics in a modern way was exactly what Shakespeare did. He used classic tales, myths, legends, and fables and rewrote them in his own words and put his own spin on the story. And the productions were ALWAYS in the 'modern" dress of the day. Obviously we can't pick up the phone to call him but I think that he would be quite pleased with these concepts. I don't know enough about Chaucer to have an opinion on this one though (despite having read Canterbury tales in 10th grade I have almost no memory of it).

I've read Chaucer, but I'm not sure if I've ever _heard_ Chaucer. The metre and rhythm of poetry was taught to me as technical terms and dead a-b-b-a formalisations, when it's really something visceral that should be learnt with your own ears, your own voice, and your own internal sense of rhythm. I think rappers understand that very well, so it'd be interesting to hear a rapper interpret and bring to life the original Chaucer.

When you get right now to it, most literature is nothing more than an author casting his own spin on classic tales, myths, legends, and fables; the esteemed Joseph Cambell spent his life studying the phenomenon. What makes one book different from another is in the specifics of how a particular author does this - language, emphasis, development, etc. That's what makes Shakespeare Shakespeare, or Chaucer Chaucer.

If one going to take someone else's recasting of these elements and change them further, modernize them, and all the rest, one might as well try to come up with something original; that is just recast the original myth material one's self, rather than change another's adaptation.

If my memory is correct each of the Canterbury Tales is dropped by a different mc. They take turns on the mic competing for dopest rhyme while cruisin in (ok, on) their decked out rides. Spooky.